Archive for the Category ‘Marcos Money’

AT A TIME WHEN THE INTEGRITY of global accounting firms is being questioned, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Justice Department are looking into charges that KPMG Zurich, a division of the international audit company, helped Credit Suisse hide hundreds of millions of dollars looted by the late Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

At a time when the integrity of global accounting firms is being questioned, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Justice Department are looking into charges that KPMG Zurich, a division of the international audit company, helped Credit Suisse hide hundreds of millions of dollars looted by the late Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos. A KPMG spokesperson confirmed the investigation.

Dan Burton, a conservative Republican congressman, wrote the SEC that he had been informed that the agency has been “presented with evidence against KMPG concerning money-laundering and subversion of a joint Philippine and Swiss freeze order for a series of accounts containing millions of US dollars”. Burton, a member of the US House of Representatives International Relations Committee, requested “prompt action” by the SEC “in seeking out the truth”. The SEC passed on its information to the Justice Department.

Corporate corruption scandals roil the United States, dragging down with them the reputations of the major accounting firms that signed off on–or even designed–fraudulent financial practices. These global auditors were supposed to keep corporations honest. But a closer look at Switzerland, the birthplace of financial legerdemain, shows that accounting deceit is nothing new. Western financial managers cut their teeth designing systems for Third World dictators to loot their countries.

Perhaps the most notorious example is Ferdinand Marcos, who is suspected of stealing at least $10 billion from the Philippines before being overthrown in February 1986. The Philippine government has spent more than 15 years trying to track and recover the money, some of which was secreted away by Swiss bankers and stashed in offshore havens.